Carefree
by Jobey in Error
Summary: OotP and HBP. Fleur preens, Bill gets domesticated, Tonks becomes one of those sad hopeless cases, and Remus dissembles. Ah, yes, and Molly can't catch a break. Supporting cast of Weasleys. P.S. The pet dog and Dora warn you: this is pre-DH!canon. 4/4
1. Part 1

**Carefree – Table of Contents**

**Part I **– Molly Tries to Pick Her Daughter-in-Law. Easy Enough to Predict the Results. It Works About as Well as We Expect.

**Part II **– One Sample of the Million Times. Remus is Busted. Repetition Breeds Fondness, or So We'd Better Well Hope.

**Part III **– Bill Tries to Live Up to the Dragonhide Boots. He Really Tries. Eventually the Womenfolk Begin to Wear Away at Him, but We Needn't Worry, He Makes a Quick Recovery.

**Part IV **– Things Begin to Circle Back to Molly, who Makes an Enormous Sacrifice. Tonks is Half-Heartedly Aggressive to Various Personages. We are Just as Alarmed as She is by Fleur's Surprise Plan for the Wedding, and with Damn Good Reason!

**Carefree**

**Part I – Molly Tries to Pick Her Daughter-in-Law. Easy Enough to Predict the Results. It Works About as Well as We Expect. **

Even in the midst of impending war and mortal perils a mother cannot ignore her eldest when the eldest threatens to get serious about a girl. Molly did not take the Order of the Phoenix lightly. How could you, when your brothers had both died during the Order's first stint, and when this time you and yours will be much closer to the heart of things? Molly had to go to secret meetings, and accept that an infamous criminal was innocent, and uproot from her own house to live in his – a place that reeked of Dark Magic _as well as_ the accumulated dust and mold of a decade. It was heavy stuff, and Molly was quite stressed out of her full plate or however the expression went, but she could still worry about Bill. She would even be _more _stressed out of her full plate if Bill got involved with someone unsuitable. And in times as dark as these, Fleur Delacour was unsuitable. Take one look at the name and you knew it. Pretentious – and impractical – and rhyming – and _French_. Like every good Englishwoman, Molly knew that the French were not to be relied upon in a crisis.

"So how did you like Bill's new friend, Mum?" Ginny asked one morning, between coughs, as they beat the dust out of a bed that Ron – and later, Harry – might be able to sleep on. (Ron was currently sharing a bed with Fred and George, which was a great sacrifice for The Cause on his part.)

"Concentrate on what you're doing, if you strike too hard you'll bust the springs. I can't really say, Ginny, we only met for a couple of minutes last night."

Ginny grinned knowingly. She tried to exchange the grin with Hermione, but Hermione was resolutely avoiding Ginny's eye. "Mum, it's okay. We already know her. You saw her at Hogwarts – she was the Bow-batons champion."

Both thoughts of that tournament's disasters and a brief battle with an ill-tempered doxy distracted Molly.

"The blonde one," said Hermione. "R – the boys were goggling at her all year… She's part veela."

"Part _veela_?" said Molly, in distrust. She did remember, now, it fit with Fleur's looks, and they way she had acted – a dangerously beautiful girl who knew it a little too well. Molly saw Fleur in her mind's eye. And slews of popular, pretty girls from her own schooldays all mixed together in her.

"Mum, she's such a snot. Hermione, weren't you telling me how she kept putting down Hogwarts all during the Yule Ball?"

"On and on," Hermione agreed. "She got to be rather a headache – I mean," she backtracked quickly, "obviously Bill knows her a lot better by now than we do…"

"Hermione, he only met her two weeks ago," said Ginny, in total disbelief. "We had to listen to her insulting Hogwarts all year. Mum, she's a total monster. Bill's not thick enough to take more than a month to see right through her."

But Molly knew that men could not always be relied upon to see right through a pretty woman. And Bill, now safely transferred back to London, would be in a much more settling down sort of mood than he had been whilst being chased by mummies in the crypts of pyramids. It would be very good to get him settled with someone suitable, which would put an end to mademoiselle and also eliminate the distractions of anyone like her. Or so Molly fondly believed.

The key, Molly figured, was Nymphadora Tonks. Admittedly it was even worse of a name than Fleur Delacour, but obviously the girl went by Dora, and Dora was acceptable. She would be attending the fullest meeting yet of the Order that Friday. Molly had asked about her. Dora was young – Charlie's age. Dora was a fully-qualified Auror. Dora had volunteered to provide biscuits for the meeting – Molly could do no decent baking in the basement. Molly didn't actually know anything more than this, but she was sure that Dora was the answer to her prayers.

The answer to her prayers arrived Friday evening with a loud oomph, tripping on the second-to-top step all the way to the bottom, where her biscuits scattered and crumbled, while she nearly knocked Dedalus Diggle over. The biscuits were not homemade. The answer to Molly's prayers had spiky pink hair. The clumsiness was a chronic thing.

Molly was still willing to be generous. Even about the biscuits. They had been purchased from a bakery. Not as good as homemade, but these modern young witches with demanding careers, it was expecting too much. And at least they weren't _store-bought_.

---

Molly nabbed a conversation with her right after the meeting. The answer to her prayers insisted on being called Tonks. Molly agreed to humour her, although of course that could not be allowed to stand.

They immediately established a common bond of feeling a little out of place. It was probably more a starting-point for conversation than anything, for no one looking at Molly or Tonks would swallow the idea that either was _shy_.

"But you're an Auror," pointed out Molly. "You have experience in these things…"

"Not been an Auror long," said Tonks. "Mostly what I have experience in is just this – being the youngest one here. And at least you seem to know the names of everyone. I know everyone introduced themselves and I hate to seem rude, but I barely remember any names."

Molly saw an opportunity.

"Well, who don't you know, dear?"

Tonks grinned. Molly thought she seemed very Bill-ish. "Easier to tell you who I do know. I know Dumbledore, of course – and Bill, because I remember him from school, and also he's the only fit bloke in the whole room – "

Molly was delighted. Opportunities didn't often work out so well. That the girl would think that – and immediately tell her! But it had to be handled properly. "My boy certainly is handsome, but I think you're being a little hard on all the other men here, aren't you?"

"Nope. Oh, I'm not saying it to be _mean_, I know this is no glamour gathering, much more serious than that – I'm just telling you it's easy to keep Bill straight, even in all this crowd. Who else? – oh, Kingsley, of course! Now once upon a time I _did _have rather a thing for him and that earring of his, but a man's a lot less attractive once you find out you could lose your job for it and take a dislike to his mother. She got shirty about the way I do my hair."

This gave Molly pause. She was rather a conservative about hair. But then… Molly recalled flowing waterfalls of blonde hair. And a half-lidded carelessness with Galleons. And the French accent. Well, she could deal with the spiky pink hair.

"And I've got Sirius straight, I was waiting to speak to him, actually." She nodded to the corner, where a slew of Order members who had just that evening learned of his innocence were accosting him. "Hard to get in a word with the man of the hour, even if he _is _your mum's cousin. Who's that bald fidgety man over by him now that I bumped into when I came?"

"Dedalus Diggle." Molly eyed him with familiar exasperation. "A flutterbudget."

Tonks suppressed yet another grin with some difficulty.

"Dedalus Diggle," she said to herself. "He was pretty good to me when I fell into him, I felt just awful. Let's see… of course Professor McGonagall… I'm not going to have to call her Minerva, am I?"

"Well, dear, I imagine at some point… I know I can sympathise with you, I had a rather fierce Herbology teacher who was later my midwife for" – it was actually Bill, but Molly thought that might be off-putting for her matchmaking scheme – "Charlie – you know Charlie – "

"Yeah, he was in my year and House," said Tonks. "Shame I couldn't have seen him here, really, I always liked Charlie. Normally boys get a big head whenever they become Quidditch heroes but Charlie was just as nice after getting written up in the _Prophet_ as he was our first year, and he was very nice to begin with."

Molly had to beam, despite her ulterior scheming. A mother just can't let such a compliment go by. Still, she said, "Oh, you'll see for yourself, all" – She was about to say _all my boys are just like that_, but then realised that Dora was likely to actually meet them. " – Bill is just like his younger brother."

"You've raised great kids then. Who's that tall witch with the dark green shawl by my dear old Potions professor?"

"I believe she's called Emmeline Vance, I haven't met her yet myself."

"The woman Sirius is talking to now with all the cat hairs, she's called Mrs Figg?"

"Yes, she is now… I still remember her as Arabella Mulciber, though."

"Arabella," said Tonks, with as much rue as youth and energy and innocence can conjure. "High-sounding, but a nice normal name. Why couldn't my mum have picked that?"

"I'm sure I don't know, dear… Do you ever go by Dora, by any chance?"

Tonks shuddered. "Only back when I went to Muggle school. It's an awful lace and baby dolls name. All prunes-and-prisms." This said with a great deal of scorn for someone who, when able to make her hair any colour she pleased, usually picked pink. "Who's that shabby sickly-looking older fellow at the end of the table?"

"That's Remus Lupin. He's only Sirius's age."

"HEY!"

Molly jumped and looked to see who had shouted, and jumped again to realise it had been Tonks. Everybody stared.

"What's _that_?" Tonks demanded angrily, going over to the table herself and kneeling by one of its legs. "This stringy thing wrapped around the tableleg! It goes out through the door – "

A sudden buzz of murmuring and looks flung door-wards.

"Who's behind the door?" asked Emmeline Vance.

"Well," said Kingsley Shacklebolt, dryly, but alert, "we'd probably have to check and see, wouldn't we?"

"Well, I thought Mad-Eye would be here," said Emmeline, with dignity. "As he isn't – yes, Auror Shacklebolt, you're right. By all means – I'll volunteer to check myself."

"_I_'ll get it," said Sirius Black promptly, rising and parting the small crowd around him. "More likely than not it's some foul trinket got loose from the mantelplace, and even if it's not I can still handle it."

Molly's husband Arthur looked uneasy.

"Careful, Sirius," said Minerva McGonagall, doubting by reflex if not by reason.

"It's unwinding from the table leg," noted Remus Lupin. "Whatever or whoever, it knows it's been seen."

Sirius muttered something that may or may not have been in response and may or may not have been "_Excellent_, give me a clear field." But nobody ever bothered to think twice about it because when Sirius flung opened the door and revealed who was there, Molly helpfully shouted an introduction.

"FRED AND GEORGE!"

There were exhales of relief, and groans, and titches of disgust… and a few muffled laughs. Even Sirius forgot to be disappointed as he lowered his wand from George's nose. Fred and George had "caught, red-handed" written on them down to their last freckle.

"Sorry to disturb," Fred said, with cheerful bravado. (His father was hurrying over to his mother, hastily trying to stifle her natural inclination to yell at them until the boys collapsed, or her own lungs did. Arthur would not have been able to restrain her within the week. Everything would start to wear on everybody by then. Tonight, however, Molly could be placated.)

"The bloody hell were you doing?" asked Elphias Doge, crossing his arms at them.

"You were told this meeting was private," said Minerva sternly.

"Ah – yes," said George cautiously. "Pleasure to see you over holiday, by the way, Professor – however, the meeting was – erm – clearly over, we saw Bill and Moody and a few others leave, and thought we'd just – ah – "

Molly was white and splotchy with pent-in anger and keen shame. What would they think of her, if she couldn't control her children's eavesdropping?

Arthur put a hand on her arm.

"So what exactly are those interesting devices?" asked Remus dryly.

The twins beamed. The enchanter of the first flying broomstick never looked prouder.

"Excellent to see you again, Professor Lupin – "

" – and excellent of you to ask. They are _only_ a triumph of modern wizardry – "

" – and of our own special brand of genius."

"No thanks to you never letting us work on a single constructive thing during class, by the way."

"But what _are_ they?" demanded Arabella Figg impatiently. "Did you _hear _us then?"

Fred and George exchanged a damning look.

"It won't happen again," said Molly, in her most menacing tones. "I hope you've enjoyed tonight, boys, it _will _be the last – "

"How sure can we be?" asked Severus Snape. "These meetings must be kept in strictest secrecy, and we cannot have the children here if they have any inclination to listen at keyholes – "

"There are charms," said Arthur quickly. "Charms even the boys can't get around."

"Of course there are," said Sirius generously. This was Sirius's hour, one of his last: to prove himself to a wider audience not only innocent (that was already in the last) but also sane and responsible. Having only been cooped in The House a week, he rose to the hour. "No need to make a big fuss about it. It's natural that they wanted to listen in, and easy enough to prevent them ever hearing anything that goes on in a meeting again. Lucky not much went on tonight: they only know that they needn't fear me murdering them in their sleep."

"Not _you_, maybe," said Molly. "As for _me – _"

There was an awkward, heavy moment of silence.

"We'll just be heading along, then," said George brightly.

Fred bowed. "'Night-night, all."

And they went off with as much haste as was seemly.

---

Molly didn't let them forget about their transgression for over a fortnight, but then it all seemed turned to good account, for in the Order's general concern that Fred and George might have more of the "interesting devices," and that they really could eavesdrop, and that they might have _other _devices similarly interesting – well, Molly announced that she would go back to the Burrow that night and investigate their room.

"You'll want some backup for that," Arthur said over the basement table, tiredly, but wryly.

"Nonsense, I can handle my own sons' bedroom."

"Molly, do you realise how many puffeskeins have gone into that room and never come back out?"

"Do you think _I_'m a puffeskein?" demanded Molly. "Don't be ridiculous, Arthur, you were on guard duty all last night and at work all of today – "

"I'm fine, dear, really – "

And that's when Tonks volunteered to go. Arthur might not have agreed, but Tonks was so openly enthusiastic about the dangers of Gred and Forge's lair that nobody could have resisted her. And while Molly really didn't need "backup," she knew that Bill had promised to stop in at the Burrow that night while she was there. Some skill and a touch of luck and who knows what private conversations between the two she could engineer.

But somehow it went miserably wrong. Molly couldn't see quite how, but she had the uneasy feeling that it just wasn't working. For one thing, they found no more of the stringy eavesdropping devices, which was a bad omen. Then too Bill was later than he had promised to be, and Molly barely managed to bribe Tonks with cocoa to stay in the house long enough. And then, when Bill actually did return, he didn't take up with Tonks at all. When Tonks asked what he'd been up to lately (she was probably referring to the time between then and the end of his Hogwarts years), his reply was the worst possible: "Oh, I got caught up for a while there with this witch from work – "

Molly was very proud of Tonks for taking this in stride. Indeed, the girl barely looked upset at all.

"Is Fleur still upset about the time you've been spending with the Order?" Molly asked, with a fine pregnant delicacy.

"Oh – oh, yeah, bit miffed," said Bill, still staring off with a grin playing around his lips. "I think I've brought her 'round though." He yawned widely, perhaps rather theatrically. "Well – if you don't mind – think I'll turn in. Nice to see you, Nymph… I mean Tonks… love you, Mum," he said, absent-mindedly kissing her and then wandering off and out and up the staircase.

"Are you staying here tonight, then, Bill dear?" Molly asked, quite confused. Bill had insisted rather strongly upon returning to England upon keeping his own place, and currently no one was staying at the Burrow at all.

"Oh! Oh, right." Bill shook his head dazedly. "Right, I'll just get my boots on and leave then."

"Dear, you never took them off…"

So that was a bit of a fiasco. And it got worse still once Bill left. Molly chanced a look at Tonks, who quickly caught her at it. Tonks was grinning. "Isn't it funny to see people in love?"

"Beg your pardon?" Molly had a bad feeling about that grin. The girl didn't seem to care a bit that Bill was so infatuated with someone else.

"Really, though, makes for great entertainment, doesn't it? At least, when they're all happy about it like Bill… it's when you get those sad cases it gets on your nerves, I'm sick to death of having to cheer up my friends when they've gone all idiotic over some heartless git… but it's very cute to see ultra-cool, wild, adventurous Bill getting domesticated."

---

If "getting domesticated" meant that London was Cairo, only improved upon; that paperwork was more exciting yet than mummy-mongering; that you suffered more suspense to see if a girl's break would synchronise with yours than you had the time you had broken into one of the pyramids of Furmat and were waiting to see if the deadly curse threatened upon intruders set in or not; that you were vaguely thankful for a crazed manic sociopath whose second terrible rising had called you back home – then yes, Bill was getting domesticated.

It was really quite wonderful, especially because they never what time their breaks would come from day to day. Sometimes a week or more would go by before theirs both overlapped. It should have been frustrating, but it wasn't – it added to the excitement. Incidentally, it was not at all bad to the career prospects of either: overseers (usually goblins) would catch Bill hanging around at the front desks, or find Fleur wandering about in the lower vaults, and both of them could handle it pretty well, turning potential telling-offs into working acquaintances.

Every so often when they did manage to find each other free they would dart into Diagon Alley for lunch, or – if they found each other early enough in their respective breaks – would venture off into the Muggle world. This usually required applying various short-term illusion spells to their blatantly Wizarding clothing, which afforded all sorts of fun, especially since Bill, as the Muggle-gear authority,was in charge of those spells, and therefore and could dress her in whatever he wanted with a wand-wave – well, not quite _whatever_ he wanted, because there was weather and common gallantry to be considered, but he had a good deal of fun with it anyway, and could enjoy the effect of Fleur in loose white blouses and jeans and sandals – or a pair of little hiking boots; he had once been quite taken with that look, but Fleur noticed that no other Muggle woman was wearing them, and told him not to make her so conspicuous again – which was quite a laugh. Fleur was endlessly conspicuous even in the most conventional styles.

They attracted a lot of looks. Some attention positive, some negative. Fleur was quite tickled once – they had nipped into a little Muggle coffeehouse on rather a short time budget. It was quite empty but for them and the woman managing the place – who was somewhere in her late twenties and was what Fleur called "a vairy good example of how frank you Eenglish are." The manager had whispered to Fleur while Bill was getting her coat to leave, "I really ought to hate you, you're so gorgeous and you've got _such_ a good-looking boyfriend, but anyway, hope you enjoy your stay in England." Bill hadn't really understood what the big deal was – Fleur probably heard stuff like that all the time – but Fleur thought it was funny. "No, no one 'as actually ever said zat to me before! I do not know eef zat eez an Eenglish thing or a Muggle thing."

"You don't know much about Muggles, do you?" asked Bill.

Fleur replied, very seriously and if this were the end-all of the subject: "Zey drive zose _automobiles_. Zey drive zem zis way and zat and get into ze most 'orrible – " She broke off, frowning slightly, for the word.

"Traffic jams," Bill proposed, with a dry nod to a long line of stopped cars that they were walking past at a comparatively brisk pace.

She shook her head. "No, accidents. Zey are vairy dangerous zings. And I 'ave nevair seen so bad a city as London for accidents."

"That's because you haven't seen Cairo," said Bill, fondly reminiscing. "_What_ madness. They don't stop there. They kind of just close their eyes and stomp on the accelerator and zoom through turns like you wouldn't believe."

"But you are right, zey also 'ave traffic jams," said Fleur, thoughtfully looking at a car that had just honked long and loud. "Zey just sit in zem for hours and hours."

"Let's you and me rent a car right now," said Bill.

Fleur stared up at him with some unintelligible syllable of surprise.

"Why not?" asked Bill. "It's easy enough to get a fake driver's license in Knockturn Alley."

"Do you know how to – to operate zem?"

"I learned to drive in Cairo," said Bill proudly. "The road no longer holds any terrors for me."

"I do not wish you in Knockturn Alley," said Fleur, with a stubborn set to her mouth. "It is a bad place."

"You didn't mind so much when we went to the Wobbly Goblin."

"Zat was not on Knockturn Alley."

He grinned at her. "It was so. Right at the tail end. And you seemed to enjoy that scene well enough."

"Zat is different. It was not a bad place; it 'ad lots of young normal people like us, and _you _would not 'ave taken me zere if it were dangerous," she said, looking up at him with a trust that dizzied him. "But I 'ear bad things about zat Knockturn Alley. Aren't you fighting some sort of war against places like zat?"

In the midst of all the hurry and worry of said war, Bill loved the dismissive way she referred to it, as though it were a piddling little distraction of his from the important business of life – which was her, clearly.

Anyway, she had a point that he probably did not want to be seen down there just now, with the Ministry breathing down the necks of anyone they suspected associated with Dumbledore. However, the Order itself might prove the answer. About half the members had Muggle drivers' licenses, some of which weren't yet quite expired, been confiscated by Muggle authorities, made useless by some magic enchantment… or destroyed in a car accident.

" – also," Fleur was saying, with the air of an unshakable conclusion, "we're supposed to be back at ze bank by one o'clock."

"Well, if you don't want to," said Bill agreeably – as usual, worked up by very little.

Fleur blinked, went suspiciously quiet, and then, after about a block, said haughtily, "I did not say at all zat I did not want you to take me out in an _automobile_, Meester Weasley; I only said zat we must be back at work soon, and zat you should not go into suspeecious places like Knockturn Alley."

It took Bill just a second or two to understand what she was angling at. Then he grinned.

"All right. How about we do it tonight, then? I'll borrow a license off someone else and touch it up a bit. We'll go for a beautiful spin and sightsee. We can," he said adroitly, "see the croft Maeve the Magnificent used to launch her counterattack."

Fleur beamed and grasped his arm. "Really? You would show it to me?"

"Mademoiselle Delacour" – Bill needed to sneak in a quick breath after this appellation, but carried it off with his usual style – "it would be a great pleasure."

She laughed and tweaked his nose. Bill had never really thought much about nose-tweaking before, but now he thought it quite the greatest sexual honour a witch ever bestowed upon a wizard.

---

But stepping back a bit. This was in the future, and Molly didn't know much of the goings-on – although she had an idea; Bill's younger siblings were eager to tease him at every available opportunity, so whatever they knew everyone knew. But if Molly needed any more confirmation that not even the lesser fates that governed such matters as one's child's romances were on her side – and the greater fates who governed the warsome doings of the world certainly weren't – well, that came barely a month in.

It was about seven o'clock and everyone (or, strictly speaking, only Molly) was faintly worried. It was only natural to expect Tonks and Lupin back at headquarters, because Arthur and Bill had gone to relieve them of guard duty at the Ministry some two and a half hours ago. Had they been delayed getting over to the Ministry, or the others been delayed getting home? And while it all could have been quite innocent it was still a little worrisome, for who could be confident of anybody's safety?

"Who," again, meaning Molly.

"Relax, Molly, d'you suppose they're just dying to get back _here_?" Sirius asked, his voice a lot more brittle than it had been a month before when he had so graciously defused the tension within the same basement.

"They've duties beyond wanting to be here or there. And there's no need to take up that tone, as if _you _were the only one tired of this place, Sirius," said Molly, equally irritable as she jabbed her wand toward the dish-clattering sink. "I've had to stay here most of the time too. And believe it or not, going to the grocer's is _not _the amazing outing of a lifetime, so just have a little patience."

"I'm getting Buckbeak his dinner," said Sirius, to avoid anything more of a fight. As soon as he left Ginny appeared. There were still feathers in her hair from an incident with the violent contents of a linen closet that morning; Ginny refused to let anyone take them out, proclaiming that they looked different and interesting. "Mum, they're back, you can stop worrying now," was all she said, promptly departing again with the usual touching desire of fourteen-year-olds to have long conversations with their mothers.

But Molly was still worrying, and besides that had taken it upon herself to be the voice of reason and caution in a secret society full of hotheads and idiots, scolding if necessary, and so she went up to meet them and demand explanations. Both of them certainly looked all right – unless you counted that even though Tonks's brown curly hair, though long to the extreme, was still the least flamboyant Molly had ever yet seen it, or that Remus looked faintly guilty. He hurried up to see Sirius before Molly could get in too many questions.

"I saved some of the dinner for you," said Molly. "It wasn't much; lunch meat sandwiches mostly, and some egg salad."

"Whoops," said Tonks cheerfully, though still allowing herself to be steered down the steps towards the basement. "Thanks, Molly, but actually we already grabbed a bite to eat. Do you want me to help with the dishes over there?"

Dishes and Tonks were a bad mix. "No, just sit there and assure me you're all right. We were getting rather worried about the two of you," Molly said, employing a admonitory tone and the royal "we". "You never said anything about doing something after your shift – "

"Nah, we didn't really plan anything, it was just that afterwards we thought we'd knock around this Muggle street a bit – yes, Muggle, don't worry, not Diagon Alley, that would have been compromising the security of the Order and all that, and it worked out lucky that we both happened to be wearing Muggle clothing today – anyway, it was just supposed to be a quick walk, stretch our legs after trying to sit still for six hours under an Invisibility Cloak, you know, but we kept getting distracted. It was quite a lot of fun, actually. And then I managed to convince him to let me get us something to eat, though it took a little arm-twisting."

Molly had to momentarily put off her plans to insist that Tonks never go absent without leave again in such uncertain times when they had the wrath of both the government and the terrorists upon them, because Molly knew enough to catch the significance of this all. _Not _that she was very happy about it. Indeed she couldn't help the faint beginnings of a frown as she said, "And to think this is the man you called 'that shabby, sickly, older fellow' when you first saw him."

"What?" Tonks looked blank. "I did? When?"

"At your very first meeting, dear, when you were asking me the names of the people you didn't know."

"I didn't," said Tonks positively. "I'm sure I didn't." She cocked her head thoughtfully. "_Did _I? Awfully harsh, wasn't I? I mean, obviously he wouldn't stop traffic for a couple of blocks or anything, but he's not _bad_-looking."

Molly shook her head. She may not have known defeat when she first saw it, but she knew defeat when it was pulling her hair and bopping her over the head.

So that was the conclusive nail on the great Bill-and-Tonks matchmaking scheme. Perhaps it was just as well. With a little more "arm-twisting," Tonks did manage to convince Molly to let her dry the dishes, and wound up knocking over a whole stack of glasses that shattered onto the floor. Molly probably wouldn't have been in the mood to hear it, but between Fleur who never deigned to set foot in kitchens, and Tonks who eagerly deigned and then promptly demolished 'em, she was probably better off with the former.

**TBC**

**(some authorities, too ridiculous for words, consider reviews courteous) **


	2. Part 2

**Part II – One Sample of the Million Times. Repetition Breeds Fondness. Or So We'd Better Well Hope. **

Tonks was still young and innocent and dewy-eyed and all enough that she could not let a promising whim go by, so on her way back from scrounging up a few extra plates to the other side of the kitchen she noticed Remus looking kissably occupied with onion slicing. He always did look such when his attention was fixed on inanimate objects. So of course she kissed him. He inclined his head enough to return it. They went on with their respective tasks, and that should have been the end of that pleasant little incident.

But Remus never _did _leave things alone. She could tell while kissing him that he wouldn't; by this point she could tell from the first millisecond when he had resolved to let himself go and when he had resolved to hold back.

"I don't think you're taking very seriously my advice to pick up your dating life," he said casually, once she had returned to her fold of the counter.

"Whatever makes you think that?" she returned, equally casual. Banter wasn't normally her thing, but they _were_ stuck there in the basement for a while trying to put a lunch for five and possibly a spare together, and this was a good a way to beguile the time as any.

"Oh, passing hunch," he said. Even with their mouths still tingling with each other's he said so very dryly, and grew increasingly precise with the onion-dicing.

Tonks sighed as if much put upon. Their backs were to each other but she was sure he could pick up the grin from her voice. "Now I should think this is getting quite old, me humouring you with those little illusions. I have no intention of finding anyone else to date. I'm dating you."

"You are _not_," said Remus, very gently.

"Oh yeah? And how's that?"

"Well, most authorities on the subject would agree that I have some sort of say-so in you dating me."

Their tones were still uniformly easy. It was not even an effort to be casual.

"Bah, your say-so." Tonks was slowly peeling slices of ham from each other. "Means nothing."

"That sort of respect for my say-so is an excellent foundation for a relationship."

"In _this _relationship that's the only sort of respect it can be founded on, you great anvil. We'd never get anywhere if I waited for your say-so. You'd never use it. Trust me on that one."

The atmosphere changed; Remus turned to direct the onion bits rapid-fire with his wand into the boiling stew, and he was obviously gearing for a more direct line of attack. "Come on, now, Tonks. It was a very enjoyable joke while it lasted but I'm afraid you've gotten serious about it somewhere along the line."

"'Fraid I did," said Tonks breezily, now busily slapping the ham onto the bread. "Somewhere around the sixteenth date. You know, months ago."

Remus frowned as he circled the table, slowly plunking a spoon down at five places. "Excuse me, what sixteen - "

"Remus! Are those teaspoons? You utter idiot – even _I _know better than that."

"Oh – right." Remus scooped them up again and traded them in for proper-sized spoons. "Come to think of it should we be making tea? This is looking to be a late lunch."

"Not so late as all that. Though I wonder if we still have that packet of coffee lying around anywhere – Kingsley always appreciates that after a morning with Dawlish – ah, thanks," she said, catching the packet that Remus lightly tossed to her on his way back over to the onions. "But you're not getting off. I'm not that easily distractable."

And so the conversation – and 'twas a very familiar conversation – went on, as they bumped elbows and finished off the cleaning of breakfast dishes together.

It was now at the point where Remus was reminding her that he didn't have a Sickle to his name, and not likelihood of extracting himself from that financial situation, as if this had any remote bearing on the topic at hand. Which Tonks was convinced it hadn't. And even if it had, what was his point?

"But, Remus, don't tell me you've forgotten, not a nice considerate bloke like you, but – " here Tonks briefly switched to a stage whisper " – _I_ have a job! Me!" A return to her regular voice, with just an extra dash of sarcasm. "It's with this Ministry lot, p'raps you've heard of it before, I'm an Auror – it's actually quite a good-paying job, and I have plenty of advancement ahead. It's more than – well, maybe not more than, but it can definitely be made to cover for the both of us."

But Remus waved his wand rhetorically in her direction. "Yes, your job," he said triumphantly, for here he had at last found fresh ground – fresh meaning they had covered it a little less than a hundred times before, instead of more. "And how long do you suppose you would _remain _an Auror if it got around you were involved with me? Oh, and I think the first pot's been on long enough already, it's making funny noises."

Tonks jabbed at the first pot thoughtfully. Since this part of the conversation was as yet unscripted, Tonks had to take a moment to think on it. "Well sooner or later they'll have to drag their minds out of the fourteen hundreds," she protested. "Anyway we're at _war_. Soon enough they'll be desperately short and wouldn't be able to spare me if I was a werewolf myself."

"I wouldn't be too certain of that. And hypotheticals aside, they might not realise we're at war for ages yet."

"Oh, it has to be sooner rather than later," said Tonks bracingly. "Get five glasses out, would you?"

"Even very late in the game last time they threw out some Auror named Murkwin on purely political grounds – her husband had made a donation to one of Bagnold's critics. And Bagnold wasn't even half so corrupt as Fudge."

"Only because she was too distracted," said a new voice, and Tonks and Remus both concealed their surprise: Mad-Eye would never let up on them if he found them startled at his approach. No excuse for not hearing him a mile off, he would have said, the way he clunked around so helpfully, and _they _were the ones holding down the fort? What if he had been a Death Eater? And so on and so forth. "Bagnold was an idiot, no question, but she was at least sincere about trying to do something even if she didn't know what, and she hadn't the time what with fighting a war and fighting it badly for too much of the political shenanigans. What're we doing talking about old Ludmilla Murkwin, anyway?"

Tonks didn't let Remus answer; she pounced. "Say, Mad-Eye, is it a _rule _Order members aren't allowed to take up with each other?"

Mad-Eye gave the frown of the confused, and then rolled his eyes. "Eh - I've got the situation about pegged now. Lupin, no one is going to let you use the Order for an excuse. 'Specially not me."

Tonks crowed, sending her dripping ladle waving through the air in celebration. "HA!" Then she folded her arms to glare at Remus, who seemed perfectly composed – but Tonks knew the miniscule shifts in posture that gave him away.

"So that's not the case?"

"Oh, Remus, you're _busted_," said Tonks. "Give it up!"

"You know it's not," said Mad-Eye.

"I did not know. I thought I remembered hearing something to that effect early on last time."

Mad-Eye snorted. "Lily and James married after joining the Order, didn't they?"

"Well, yes, but you couldn't very well have stopped them – "

"Just as they couldn't very well stop us!" Tonks protested, all indignation, but nothing deeper. Tonks was really not all that worked up about it; she was sure she would get her way in the end, and in the meantime twitting Remus about it was half the fun.

"I thought that was quite a different case," Remus insisted doggedly. "They were already going out before joining the Order. Look – " He was ready to appeal to Moody on different grounds, as fighting on the current turf was obviously no good for him. "Let's have your opinion on how much it would take to have an Auror discharged even during a war?"

There were some days – most, perhaps – when Mad-Eye wouldn't have let himself be used in this fashion, but today he sat down with a put-upon sigh to mull it over. "Well. Let's see now. By war you mean like last time."

"Exactly like."

"Well… it would be difficult to get discharged. We didn't have near enough to go around last time." There was a certain look in Moody's eye not entirely unlike the one Sirius sometimes got thinking of Azkaban – of an endless nightmarish past. Though on Mad-Eye's part it went almost as quickly as it had come. "But… yeah… in this case, I'd have to say they'd be bound to at least harass you about it, and suspend you, and investigate you, and probably in the end discharge you," he said, with a nod in Tonks's direction. "A werewolf's near as good as a Death Eater. Too suspicious. I mean, you have to look at it from the point of view of someone who doesn't know Lupin here. And then add that to public opinion, and – mind, I'm not saying what you should or shouldn't do, but you two asked and I am saying Tonks probably wouldn't be kept on."

"There you have it," said Remus.

Tonks's arms were still folded, and now her mouth was set rather mulishly. "That's just what would have happened _last time_," she said. "I'm not accepting anyone's word on the matter except Kingsley's. You two old-timers just know how the Auror Office _used_ to be. Kingsley's a veteran of the new atmosphere."

"Well, we'll sound him on it," said Moody, agreeably enough for a man who's just been declared outmoded. "Mind, lassie, I'm not saying you should back down to him on this one. But where's Sirius? Thought he'd be down here sniffing me out for news."

"With Buckbeak," said Remus, with the dignity of one who knows that all in the room – indeed the house – want to see him trumped. "He was in rather too restless a mood for sandwich-making this morning."

"He was a miserable git," said Tonks, "don't look at me like that, Remus, he was, and I hope all the company today shakes him up a bit."

"I'll do my best," said Moody, pulling himself up again.

The second he was gone Tonks stuck out her tongue at Remus. "_That_'s for lying to me."

"I did not lie, I honestly thought – "

"_Sure_ you did – whoops!" For twirling dramatically on her heel had backfired and Remus had just yanked her back from falling into the open fire. "Thank you."

"Why don't _I _take over the stew."

"Suits me, I know the different between teaspoons and tablespoons. At any rate – well, I'm totally up a few points on you now."

"Tonks," Remus sighed, "it's not a matter of keeping score, you know it's not, and I wish you wouldn't – "

"Yes?" asked Tonks innocently, still kneading his back.

"Like that," he said quietly. "And earlier."

"Oh, but last week _I _wasn't the one who started it. You've got the worst passive-aggressive complex-thingy going on – " Here Tonks had to laugh. "Oh, yeah, did I mention my brother says hello?"

The matter of her brother had been a great victory for her; before that Remus had been able to claim that he simply was not interested in her, but Tonks knew that he had been terribly jealous before finding the young Muggle at her flat had been one of her two brothers, and although Remus denied it he knew she knew. Admittedly it was always hard to tell with Remus, and it had only been a matter of a certain cast to his eyes and the slightest shift in his shoulders, but Tonks had been well able to pick up on it.

"Well, return the greeting for me, if he really did" – Remus looked dubious on that score – "but can you please stop harping on that? You've blown it entirely out of proportion. Anyone would think I had been plotting murder as I shook hands with him."

"I promise to stop harping on that when you stop harping about being a werewolf and all that rot. Which, by the way, Ajax thought was wicked cool." Tonks tried to grin, but wound up tilting her head thoughtfully. "You know, it's very difficult to talk to Ajax these days, or anybody else not in the Order. I can get by at work, because the Aurors at least take this sort of thing seriously even if not all of them believe what's happening, but – well, I'm afraid that's just another way you're well shut in, since I can't put up with what Ajax calls 'civilians' anymore."

"Tonks. There are Aurors, and there are members of the Order, and some very fit Hit Wizards now I come to think of it, who aren't a dozen years older than you, who aren't Knutless, and who wouldn't accidentally eat your children, and, once again, I beg you – go and at least give them a fair shot."

"Shows how much you know. Against office policy to date other Aurors."

They had really finished up all their kitchen work, and the conversation had gone on quite past the bantering stage; Remus braced himself back against the counter as if ready to make his final move. Perfectly unconcerned and ready to meet it, Tonks pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it, resting her chin on the top rung.

"Tonks…" He sighed. "Do you remember New Year's Eve?"

She grinned at him. "Affirmative."

"I think that whole episode serves as a very good synecdoche for the possibility of our whole relationship."

"Hold up. If you're going to shut me down, you're going to do it in words I understand."

"A synecdoche is… a rhetorical tool in which a part is used to reference its whole." (Tonks was shaking her blue-haired head in the most disgusted manner.) "Or vice versa, but that's not the sense I used. I was using it illustratively, so that we can examine this one portion and draw lessons to apply to the larger picture."

"No way. You made that word up," Tonks said in the most accusing of tones.

"I did not."

"Did too. I'm no professor, but I'm not half so ignorant as you think. Bet you anything my NEWT marks were better than yours."

"Very likely they were. But I'm not making up the word."

"You must have. I've never heard such a stupid word in all my life."

"Bear with me for a second, please? Now think back. At first it promised to be very enjoyable, did it not?"

"I do seem to remember that," said Tonks, pokerfaced, with a levity that told him plainly that she did not see his objections as anywhere near a defeat for her position.

"As do I, Tonks, honestly. But then, after Phineas Nigellus started hectoring us – "

"We should have carried on. Actually I think we did. I _hope _we did."

"Well, I think we had to settle a thing or two with him first – but then after that we upset the hundred or so spiders that started scurrying everywhere underfoot – "

Tonks got a reminiscing glint to her eye. "I don't know, I remember it made me jump closer to you, so that was a benefit, really. Very appreciative I am of those spiders."

" – and then you tripped over the threshold and blacked your eye on the banister – "

"Now that's just low, to use that against me."

"I am not using it against you, it's just another example. And then when we stumbled over the corpse of that Crup – "

"Okay, I will admit that ruined the mood a little."

"I know it was just 'a little'. All of these were very little things in themselves, just as you say my various objections are, but added up – they did force us back down to the basement."

"No, Remus, _you _wound up dragging us back here. I was all for going on."

"That's not how I remember it."

"Well, we were both mildly to moderately intoxicated. Perhaps under the influence I didn't put up as good a fight back then in your little sin-neck-dee-key, but I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Tonks, you're purposefully trying not to understand what I'm saying. It's hardly a concept that's beyond you."

"I wouldn't agree with you even if I understood what you were saying," said Tonks, still enjoying herself hugely.

"Look, I'm just saying that all my reasons might seem petty, and in a sense they are– I'm not saying any one of them alone is enough for me to put an end to this – but all together they build up a very convincing case."

"Look, Remus. Do you love me?"

It is entirely possible to be too direct with Remus. Perhaps even too easy. He looked at her a minute, and then left the room.

Tonks let him. She wasn't yet worried. "I'm sober now, Remus," she called after him lazily. "You'll not be able to say you don't remember me putting up a good fight _this _time."

Making matters even better, Kingsley came in moments later, and, after some obligatory grumbling on his part about how lucky she was to have pulled the off-shift, she extracted from him an opinion on the career-prospects question that differed from Mad-Eye's. Tonks smirked. Wars were wonderful devices for adding just enough drama to the day, and the world was as yet very good.

**TBC (let's say, oh, tomorrow? - you may have noticed the pattern) **


	3. Part 3

**Part III – Bill Tries to Live Up to the Dragonhide Boots. He Really Tries. Eventually the Womenfolk Begin to Wear Away at Him, but We Needn't Worry, Bill Makes a Quick Recovery. **

In his wildest dreams – and even for a twentysomething man of good looks and easy competence Bill was not shy about dreaming – he had never even bothered to hope for such an enthusiastic response. Oh, a pretty enthusiastic response – but _this _reaction hadn't crossed his mind somehow.

She had squealed – actually squealed – and leapt into his arms. He was actually carrying her, a full-grown and gleefully writhing woman.

"Oomph! That's a yes, I take it?" Though he was struggling a little with it, Bill still loved her warm weight.

Now, Bill had never made so much headway in French as she had in English – she was the one in an immersion setting and all – and he was surprised (when the moment passed; while still in it he was too distracted) to find that he understood her torrent of French. It was something like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, you silly wonderful man!"… which sounded a bit odd in translation…

Nah. Bill wasn't one for false modesty. It sounded great in any language.

---

At odd that summer hours the Burrow seemed to relax, unwind. There were no scowls or forced smiles (always hard to say which is worse), no aside mutterings, none of the kids skulking in their rooms (outside was no good, since Mum and Dad were "paranoid" about them getting too far out of sight just then). To be sure Mum let loose a lot of complaints that she didn't normally, but she obviously got such relief out of them that it really bothered nobody. And to be sure Order business was discussed a great deal more, and that was certainly solemn and everything, but all in all it was part of the general exhale. Hot chocolate and odd bits of pie were pulled out from wherever they were hidden, and everyone began to act a little more like themselves.

It just so happened that Fleur worked those odd hours, on call.

Bill, who had been up all the night before (on said Order business) thought he might get in a nap that shadowy late evening when the whole house seemed at its most casual and comforting. He tossed off the dragonhide boots (Fleur hated when he had his boots on the bed), laid back, and closed his eyes.

This peace lasted about three minutes, on par for the Weasley household. Bill was pretty used to this.

Ginny stomped through the door. Her brown eyes were narrowed and she was a collective tornado of red-haired temper. Bill knew he could most get a rise out of her by doing nothing, and so he didn't stir or open his eyes even as he spoke. "Thanks for knocking."

"Bill, I need to have a _talk _with you."

Dreadful words. Fleur and Mum seemed to be taking those words in turn, and now Ginny was in on the fun.

"Sure. About summer homework?"

Even though Bill's eyes were still provokingly closed he could_ feel _her glare. And it was possibly _boring _a_ small _but_ fatal hole _through his_ skull_.

"No. About _her_."

"Why, what's Hermione done?"

Okay, so he really was a bit of a bastard. But he was tired, and he wasn't acting half so childishly as everyone else in the house.

"Today while you were out she called me and Ron 'not very bright.'"

"Oh?"

"_Yes_."

A pause for five long seconds. "That's it?"

"Bill, look at me!" She smacked him on the shoulder. Smacking her back (very lightly), he sat up and did so.

"All right, all right," he said agreeably. Best to let the womenfolk have their rants. Only way a sensible bloke could have a peaceful life. "Now what exactly happened?"

"What she said – and I quote – 'Ah, yes, I forgot zat you two are not very bright. I will use smaller words.'" Her eyes went nearly narrower. "That's _not funny_."

"Did I laugh?" asked Bill, stifling a grin. "Well, what brought this on?"

"What do you mean?" Eyes still narrowed – she would get a headache or a lined forehead that way – Ginny made each word taut.

"I mean what were you all talking about before she agreed to use smaller words?"

She tried to punch him. For Ginny this action was always more serious than for the run-of-the-mill younger sister, but Bill wasn't worried; he stood, caught her fists mid-air, pretended to send one into his gut – "Ooh! You got a hold of me there!" – and then enjoyed holding her arms securely in the air and laughing at her attempts to stomp on his foot. Then, by some miracle, she did manage the stomp, and Bill hastily let her go.

He should have kept the boots on. No doubt about it.

"Ouch," he said reprovingly.

Ginny looked fiercely up at him with a sort of pitying glare that said, more clearly than words, _You've gone utterly soft and dippy, Bilius Weasley, and have lost all the respect I ever had for you as my cool older brother. I am now writing Percy to see if I can adopt him as my new role model to fill your vacancy. _

"Look, the way I see it, when one of us brings somebody home, that person is then family. Did I ever treat Hermione a _fraction _so badly as you treat Fleur? Of course not."

"But Hermione's _not annoying_."

Bill just looked at her until she reconsidered.

"Well, she doesn't go around acting like she's better than us all."

"Look, Gin, Hermione's a great girl and all, but that first summer she was here she spent the first half of her stay _correcting my grammar_ and the second half ranting about me being part of an evil society that enabled the slavery and exploitation of house-elves. That does get a little annoying. But did I let on?" Bill said proudly. "Nope. I just looked out for her good qualities."

"Fleur doesn't _have _any good qualities."

"Easy!" said Bill, with something of a growl. "She does so. Just because you refuse to see them – she's a wonderful woman. Very unique."

She glared up at him, balled-up fists on her hips. Bill wanted to laugh at her and muss up her hair, but he had a feeling that it would just prolong this conversation, and he really was rather tired. "You know," Ginny said, words dripping in scorn, "you used to be _cool_. Now you're just – "

Bill waited in amusement. "Yes?"

"Just – just – I don't even think they've found a word for it yet! But whatever it is, you _are_. To the last degree."

"Ouch," he said indifferently. "That hurts, Gin, that really hurts."

"It's the opposite of cool. Somewhere between 'girly' and 'disgusting'."

"Now you're getting somewhere. I'm approaching real pain. Continue with the insult; I'm sure once you work it out it'll be simply devastating."

"I can't stand this," said Ginny, tugging hard on her own hair. "Fleur keeps criticising Mum's cooking. Mum keeps 'forgetting' to set her place at the table. And Hermione's going to go kill herself because Ron keeps following her around like a drunk dog."

"Yeah, it's kind of funny, isn't it?"

"It is _not_." Ginny glared up at him. Bill shrugged; Ginny was guilty of exaggeration, anyway, and he hadn't even the remotest fear of Hermione killing herself, and if she did eventually get a little too jealous – well, it might speed the two of them along. "You weren't here the day Elphias What's-His-Face tried to Floo us to tell us that Vance woman was killed, and Fleur wouldn't get out from underfoot, and Mum was going spare – "

"Already heard about it," said Bill tiredly. "Been through it all with Mum."

"Well, it was very bad. If I get myself killed I hope it doesn't cause such a commotion here."

"Well, do try to not get yourself killed, wouldn't you?" asked Bill, perhaps with a note of edginess.

"What about you, gallivanting about with the Order, if you get hurt you'd just better hope Fleur isn't – "

The sleepy dragon was thus rouseth. He lifted his head to gaze at her and said pointedly, "I told Fleur last year about what was going on – not all of it, just an idea so she could get the hell out of here if she wanted. I don't know how much she understood then, but with all the coverage lately she can't possibly have missed it, and she still said 'yes' to be anyway, so give her a little credit, it's not like she ran back home when the going got rough."

"I'm not giving her credit until she gives me some," said Ginny flatly. "_I _haven't run off even though I knew all along what's going on, and neither did Ron, and both of us fought off actual Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries last month, and I'm not trying to brag about it, but it's pretty rich of her to call us 'not very bright'."

"English isn't her first language. She probably didn't mean for it to sound – like that."

"So what? She got across what she meant. If she had said it more nicely it still comes out to the same thing, doesn't it?"

Which was the Ginny Weasley philosophy to life: Sugar is worse than what it coats. Still, although unconvinced she did appear satisfied, as if she had been bursting to get it out of her system and now pretty well did. Bill mussed her hair; she punched him on the arm; she pranced out of the room with an affected little walk that was obviously supposed to ape Fleur. Bill laid back again and closed his eyes.

He fell asleep within minutes.

---

"Bill."

There was a dim light, causing Fleur's dim silhouette of loose silvery hair and long nightgown as she knelt by his bed and said his name insistently. It was just hours after Ginny had left him in peace.

"Bill…Bill. What does 'phlegm' mean?"

Bill might have worried about her voice, which was strangely vulnerable and childish, but mostly he was too tired to be anything more than relieved that Fleur did not intend to give him the counterpart to Ginny's complaints just then – and so honestly didn't notice that anything was wrong. Fleur often asked him the meanings of odd words she overheard that weren't in her French-English dictionary that had been printed a more genteel century ago.

So he laughed weakly. "How'd _that _word pop up among the tellers today?"

"Nobody said it to me, I only…" Fleur spoke slowly, as if perhaps her English was failing her. "… I overheard it today. I thought… I thought it sounded per'aps like one of ze characters een zat comic your littlest brozzer likes, _Martin Miggs_…"

"Oh… no, that's the dog Flimflam, I doubt that's what you heard. 'Phlegm' is… well, you know the stuff old Lepwink coughs up every time he gets too near an owl?"

---

And this was just Fleur and the Weasleys. Members of the Order kept dropping by the Burrow and Fleur was meeting them all one by one during the day while Bill was out. She regaled him almost every night with a running commentary on their moonlit strolls. Bill had nothing against anyone in the Order, but her refusal to approve of any of them was entertaining.

By the time Fleur first met Tonks the latter was a mess. Fleur took it personally. Then Bill snogged her a little and she was moved instead to a more charitable pity.

The next night Fleur insisted that Hestia Jones had been laughing at her accent – while flirting with _'er homme_. After having shared enough guard-duty shifts with Hestia the past year, Bill seriously doubted it, but soon found himself too busy to consider saying so.

But she literally kept him at arm's length the evening after meeting Mad-Eye.

"Can 'e use zat eye to see _zroo clozing_?" she demanded in outrage, while Bill laughed and wheedled and placated her.

Kingsley had given her a fright, having startled her from behind quite by accident, and afterwards being tall and tough and appropriately Aurorish. "I felt as if I was doing somezing _wrong_," Fleur complained.

"Sure you were," said Bill, hands roving.

But Fleur's opinion of Kingsley improved drastically after meeting Dung Fletcher. "'e eez zee filziest, smelliest, foulest – "

"Well then," Bill said in satisfaction, "at last you and Mum agree on something."

And even Dung was tolerable in Fleur's eyes after encountering Sturgis Podmore a few days later. That really had been an unfortunate incident, and it wasn't only Fleur who would have complained afterwards.

"'e – 'e – "

Bill did not even wait for the string of French synonyms. "He tried to grope you, I know, I heard. You weren't using any charm, were you?"

"_Non_!" said Fleur, angrily. Fetchingly angry, really.

"I'm really sorry, but we're all trying to cut him some slack, he spent six months in Azkaban, you know, back when the dementors were still there and everything, and he never did quite recover, we don't really let him in on too much now, but Mum feels bad enough to bake cakes and such for him…"

Fleur was not in a forgiving mood, and the next night she said rather grimly that she had met zat Remus Lupin person.

"Oh, well, he didn't offend you, did he?" Bill asked. If he had to pick someone on whose shoulders to lay Britain's last shot at proving its civility it would have been Remus. He couldn't imagine anyone being able to find fault with his conduct in the first ten minutes.

"'e was polite enough," said Fleur, pouting. "But 'is mind was clearly elsewhere. 'e did not pay me any attention."

"Well – good!" exploded Bill, laughing incredulously at the extraordinary whims of women. "Damn straight he didn't pay you any attention!"

Fleur refused to be satisfied. And "'e or she ignored me" was her standard complaint when she could find no other fault; quite a few other visitors got the same condemnation. Fleur's was a complex relationship with attention, and while she frowned upon too much she pouted at none at all.

One day, wandering from the outskirts of the village and slowly at that, for to walk lip-locked requires considerable coordination, Fleur broke away and asked out of the blue but as though this were quite congruous with the conversation they had just then not been having:

"And eez zis Order – somezing I could join?"

Bill looked at her seriously. He had thought this would come up sometime. "They might have some resistance to you joining. You've only been out of school for two years now."

"At what age do zey allow recruits to join?"

"Well, you have to be seventeen – I know you're older than that, it's just that anything beyond that is not really cast in stone. It's really sort of subjective."

"Subjective meaning what they think of the person."

"Well – yes, basically."

She stared at herself hard in the mirror. "Well, perhaps zey are wise in zat. I am not sure, myself, if I had ze courage to do zat – maybe – one day – do you remember how I lost my head in ze Triwizard Tournament?"

"Fleur, you faced down – what was it? – there was a dragon, and underneath the lake, and that maze I saw wasn't a piece of cake either."

"Yes, and I made a 'orrible mess of zings. Zat eez what makes me unsure of myself now. In a way I sort of hate doing nozzing while ze rest of you are fighting, but I am not – what do you call it? –

Bill frowned at her puzzedly. "A warrior? Rash? _Idiot_?" He spun a very broad and bad accent to try making the last word French.

" – a Gryffindor, and I know what I can do and cannot do," she finished, placidly. "And so I will not let anyone here make me feel less about zat."

"Fleur – that's really pretty incredible, to consider yourself like that." Bill couldn't quite articulate what 'that' was, but it was something pretty novel to his experience, and he trusted Fleur enough to believe anything new she showed him in her must by her very nature be both good and admirable.

"Eet eez called contemplation, I believe. Somebody should teach you Gryffindors about it."

---

But with Molly Fleur was unmoved and implacable, and vice versa most especially. There was nothing for it. They antagonised each other half to death. Fleur went around airily saying "cooking and chickens!" fifteen times a day and always comparing everything to how it was done in France, to her host country's disadvantage. Molly hid all the things Fleur most especially liked to eat. Visitors learned to handle the atmosphere with gloves, and especially to never but ever show any signs of appreciating Fleur's occasional singing. Her vague wordless tunes were unfortunately very appreciable, but to show any sign of said appreciation drew Molly's snarls.

One night shortly before Bill and Fleur thankfully ended their home-stay is a good illustration of these tensions. Fleur had come back from quite a late shift at work. Molly's greeting was less than rapturous upon seeing her on the other side of the door. At the very first syllable Molly sank into ill temper. "Hello," she said, carelessly, as she unlocked the door. Molly had not deigned to bother with security for Fleur. It was true that someone might impersonate her – she had brought up this weakness in their security often – but Molly had no faith Fleur wouldn't blab the question far and wide,at the first threat of a hooded figure that might muss her hair. Or so she put it, in vociferous hisses to whatever unfortunate ear was around to hear these rants. "Did work go well?" she asked, in a rather nasty tone that suggested that she rather Fleur had found it quite enchanting enough to stay there indefinitely.

Fleur was not the least ruffled. "Yes, it eez always an enjoyable break," she said, with perfect complacence. "It was quite busy, we 'ad in what seemed the 'ole of ze Society for 'erbologists – "

"Lovely," said Molly coldly. "If you'll excuse me, I have something on the stove."

And that provoking, idiotic girl followed her. (Molly's adjectives, not mine. Bill, in fact, had already had a tiff with her about these adjectives, that had ended with his clincher, sternly delivered: "Mum, do not call my fiancée 'that idiot girl'.")

"Oh, eez that fresh bread? I must say zere eez really no one like you for baking, even back 'ome – "

For Fleur, you see, had not quite escaped the instinct to flatter Molly in order to wrangle favourite items from the kitchen! Quite a testament to Molly's cooking, but somehow the implicit compliment did not move her.

"Don't touch it," Molly said, nearly snarling. "It's for Professor Lupin. Surely you picked up something after work?"

Fleur shrugged indifferently. "Yes, I did. It eez a good thing I did, really, your cooking is quite fattening."

On and on this has gone. And will go.

"Well then," said Molly, with an ugly sort of triumph that was rather marred by Fleur calmly shaking off a long pale sea-green scarf and sitting at the table. "_Excuse me_, Fleur."

"Do not bark so," said Fleur, having learned that interesting phrase from Bill just a week ago. "I am not going to eat anyzing, I want only to sit and read some papers from work and wait."

"I was not aware you were so fond of Professor Lupin's company."

"Any company eez somezing out here, don't you think? It 'as been ever so dull since ze children left for Frogwarts – "

"_Hogwarts_." Molly nearly choked.

" – ah, yes, zat eez ze name. I knew eet was somezing along zose ugly lines. And anyway, your professor seems a gentleman, which eez _such_ a novelty in zis country."

The forgotten name of the school she had stayed at for some six months and the dig at all of her host country were not sincere so much as a good chance to infuriate Molly further. The following twenty minutes were both very silent, save for Fleur humming, and Molly banging things around with rather more noise than was strictly necessary.

Once Remus arrived, to entrust his wand to the Burrow before going off to Greyback's lot, Fleur proved unshooable. Molly issued about five smashingly broad hints before Fleur teasingly suggested that Arthur might appreciate her chaperoning ze two of zem. Molly, then currently holding a wand in either hand, had been on the verge of doubly cursing her, until Fleur wisely saw this and retreated.

"Ah. Ah, yes," said Fleur, rising lazily. "Your little Order. Well, I'll leave you to it zen."

Remus, tired and distracted and far-off as he was, had yet a sense of humour that had not gone entirely untouched at this parting shot, and Molly had eyed his smile with dangerous flashes.

"Very amusing, I'm sure," said Molly coldly. "Between you and me, she's really rather a – "

"Molly – "

" – priggish little – "

"Molly!"

" – flat-out – "

"Molly, don't, come on now – "

She looked at him pleadingly. "It would be such a relief to say it."

"No it wouldn't," Remus said hastily, "trust me, you won't feel a bit better for saying it, and probably worse."

Molly considered it with a certain amount of huffing, and then said, grudgingly, "Well, I suppose if you can put up with Fenrir Greyback, I can put up with Fleur Delacour, but I still think by Christmas at least I'll be willing to swap."

At any rate, Remus was not there to appeal to her better side all of the time, and there was oneinstance when Molly _had _muttered the word. She had thought herself quite out of earshot of anyone – certainly it was not a word she would ever permit her children to say and go unhexed – but nevertheless she had felt a certain guilty flip-flop in her stomach when she passed Percy's old room in which Fleur was just then stationed. Fleur didn't always _remain _stationed in this room – but Bill was out that night on Order business, and so it was only Molly alone that kenw Fleur was, from the sound of it, sobbing into her pillow. Molly paused uneasily by the door awhile, as deeply conflicted as one can be when tired and worn-out and with an armload of bedsheets that comes up so high you can rest your chin on them. Maternal instincts called to her from this new source.

But then she shook herself, and shuffled on with catlike silence and eyes hard. _Cooking and chickens! _She was _not _to be softened Phlegm-wards.

---

All in all, quite a relief to everyone's nerves, and probably the saving of several relationships, for Bill and Fleur's stay to end.

But Bill had to admit it wasn't all that great a solution. Ottery St Catchpole was sunlit and green and wild-wooded and peaceful. London was… London. Dirty skyscrapers loomed, germs flew thick on the air, dementors bred all about them until the foggy air was thick with palpable depression. Diagon Alley was for all intents and purposes dead, and from the papers and news it seemed more and more that the same fate awaited anyone fool enough to go there.

They did no more partying at the Wobbly Goblin; apart from Gringotts and Order business they stayed well holed up in their shared flat, which was bright and lovely with each other's company, but undeniably confining. Especially when month after month passed. Pillows were always scattered everywhere, Fleur had glossy bridal magazines littering the floor, and their two owls and any visitors hooted incessantly, vying with the droning noises of their Muggle neighbors that permeated the walls.

Whenever he was out – whenever, for example, Dumbledore called on him to patrol Hogwarts while he was out on his mysterious jaunts – then Bill would have to discuss the war in tiresome and repetitive detail with everyone. Even at work the goblins were often to be found discussing it in low Gobbledegook. But 'at home' Fleur barely ever mentioned it. Fleur thought a much greater worry was the domestic situation: "I really 'ope your muzzer will not be so disagreeable to my family as she 'as been to me so far!"

To be honest, Bill, man-like, had managed to more or less forget she _had _a family. Oh, very well, he knew she had one, she brought them up frequently and carried on profuse correspondences with some of her relatives and friends, but he had managed to avoid realising that he would one day meet them, that they would be his in-laws. Engagements aren't what they used to be.

"How long d'you suppose they'll stay here?" he asked, stretching out on the couch – plenty of room alongside for her to join him, when she was ready, but there was no hurry, only a domesticated certainty that sooner or later she would be, and again and again afterwards.

"We are still working zat out," said Fleur, busily scribbling away and frowning over her mother's letter, and she went on in a careless sort of French about her father not being able to take more than a fortnight from work. Bill could understand her in French by now, though when he tried to speak it himself the usual result was only to make Fleur laugh heartily at him. She went on, something about the old family _flammeum_. Bill brought his glass to his lips, drank, and closed his eyes, feeling quite at peace in the word.

Then Fleur started talking about some sort of family tradition.

"I'm not following you, love, what's this about whose approval?"

Fleur switched to English. "Oh, you know, just a test by my parents to see eef you are worthy enough a husband for me to wear ze _flammeum_."

"What about the potion I thought you were saying was involved?"

"Oh, eet eez a very mild truth serum," Fleur said lightly.

Bill was sitting upright now. What on earth sort of things would they _ask _him? They were rather… _traditionalists_, weren't they?

"Good lord," said Bill, voice soft in an awe so great that it eschewed his more typical 'bloody hell!'. He had to admit that things were getting just a bit over his head now. Just a _bit_, of course. He could swim back to the surface very easily, any time he wanted. But – !

Fleur laughed.

"You sound like your fazzer. He says zat."

Very well, so perhaps he was just doomed. It's really very bad to have your love live with your family, even if they get along much better than Fleur and the Weasleys. Because now Fleur had an idea of what he would be like in a couple of decades. He sighed. All the sudden things were getting to him.

She looked over her shoulder and rushed over to him in all concern. "Oh, I did not mean zat badly, you silly man! I like your fazzer very much – even if 'e eez just a _touch_ eccentric – "

Bill grinned. Partly because she was giving him an earrub. "So long as it's in all affection, you can call him 'daft' like all the rest of us do."

"'e eez not daft, 'e eez ze only one 'ere 'oo is kind to me, apart from you. Even zough he cannot stand up to your muzzer."

"Ah. You noticed, did you?"

**TBC (only one more part to go now!)**


	4. Part 4

**A/N: Belatedly dedicated to Possum 132, in large part because without her this fic still might be hamstrung by that interlude. (Sorry to anyone who may have really enjoyed it, but I don't think we're in too much danger on that front.) **

**Quick aside, because I forgot to explain it in the A/N last chapter - a _flammeum_, in ancient Rome, was a bridal veil, called a "little flame" because of its red-orange color. From that I always kind of imagine old Wizarding families had bridal veils that really were made of fire.** **If we do see one in Book 7 I will be delighted. I think it's not the craziest prediction I've ever made.**

**P.S. This is the final version restored after some astounding feats of memory on my enormously stupid part. **

**Part IV – Things Begin to Circle Back to Molly, who Makes an Enormous Sacrifice. Tonks is Half-Heartedly Aggressive to Various Personages. We are Just as Alarmed as She is by Fleur's Surprise Plan for the Wedding, and with Damn Good Reason! **

Molly had never taken much stock in the young people's new habit of being _just friends_. She knew that had been Remus's latest line concerning Tonks and found it simply a scream.

It had never been funny to Remus. What a shock it had been the day, about one year ago now, that Sirius had said, ever so mildly and matter-of-factly, "Well, you are keen on her, aren't you?" He was so unused to being around people who knew him well enough to pierce right through his careful concealment of most of his emotions, thus making a shambles of his island. And he had gotten so _good_ at such concealment – even Sirius had never suspected the depths of his keenness. And even as yet none of the Order members with their knowing grins and rolled eyes in his direction knew that he had been far gone on Tonks long before she had begun to reverse her initial assessment of his looks – by that point he had already vowed to himself several times to never let on about this new feeling of _she_'_s-simply-marvellous_, had already steeled himself to take that feeling to the grave and to smile as on-looker and well-wisher at her wedding to some achingly lucky bastard who was free to give her it… and he had been so sincere, but all this reckoning had been done without thinking of the rest of the world. Remus had neglected two considerations. First, those _she_'_s-simply-marvellous _feelings tend to out themselves, especially with someone like Molly nosing around. Second, Tonks might put his resolutions to a still sorer test by reciprocating. When both these oversights exploded in his face, Remus simply persisted in overlooking.

For example. It was touching the confidence with which Remus went to the Burrow for shelter and recuperation, straight from one of his underground stints, with his defences at their lowest. To be sure, he refused to enter at first, and simply begged for his wand on the other side of the keyhole. He knew he looked a fright, and doubtless smelled it too, and wouldn't let Molly see him until he'd gone and cleaned off. But he did accept an invitation to return afterwards and have a bite to eat.

Ah, so trusting, to give himself over to Molly's clutches with his mind still darkened and in shock from the past two months, unable to be wrapped around normal life at all. He even exerted himself to be a pleasant guest; when Molly expressed concern over his having been with the werewolves longer than expected he forced enough cheer to say that it had at least been profitable, and that anyway teaching her twins had been more hazardous in many respects. He thanked her profusely for the meal, and felt guilty (of course) that after everything she was offering him he couldn't quite bring himself to enquire after her doings in turn. And all in all he neglected to notice Molly bustling back and forth to a certain piece of parchment she kept scribbling on even while shoving plate after plate before him. And once he finally _did _notice he failed to pursue it. Instead he asked fora piece of parchment of his own, to jot down some notes for his report before he forgot them.

She provided them, and left him for a moment to his jottings, but then issued a caveat: "Now, Remus dear, I've been thinking that it's a bad idea to keep your wand here while you're – well, while you're gone. This can get to be rather a madhouse at times, and I think you can find a safer place for it."

Remus looked at her guilelessly. "Well, of course I wouldn't dream of keeping it here if you'd rather I not, I'll just – " And then a certain guile set in, at about the same second Molly's cheeks went pink.

"For example, I'm sure, well – "

"I'm not asking her to," Remus said, trying to sound immovable, and only succeeding in sounding tired.

"I didn't mention anyone," said Molly, going pinker than ever. "It's just there's plenty of – well, Order members, who live alone…"

"Yes, I'm sure Moody would keep it for me."

"Wha – ? – oh, don't be ridiculous, Mad-Eye indeed! And have him smash it in two one night when he hears the rain on the roof and thinks he's being ambushed, you might as well turn it over to Greyback and have done with it! Now stop being such a silly about this. You ought to have Tonks keep it for you, and that's all there is to it," she finished, with a fussy sort of firmness, now with two fierce red circles on her face.

Remus sighed.

Once upon a time he had thought his mother terribly interfering because she asked too many sharp questions while he and his friends were trying to break national law. Of course, shortly after leaving his teens he understood that he had been wrong, fortunate in his mother for many reasons, the least of which was that she was not really overinquisitive at all, but this knowledge had been purely theoretical.

It had taken meeting Molly Weasley to learn it on more practical terms.

"Will you?" Molly asked, dangerously.

"I'll go and see her before I go back, if that'll satisfy you," Remus mumbled unwillingly.

Molly was immediately all sweetness. She even kissed him on his bent head as she cleared away a cleaned-out bowl of beef stew. "There you go, that's the way of it, and honest now, aren't you secretly glad to have an excuse to see her?"

"No. It'll end with things worse than before."

"Well, if you have your way, I suppose it will, but _I_'m counting on you losing. Now there, you sit tight and I'll get you one of these raspberry tarts. I couldn't make them all summer – Fleur liked them too much…"

Remus, perhaps to distract her before she would wrangle any further concessions from him, asked after everyone he could think of, and had wound Molly to the point she was discussing some new con of a potion Arthur was dealing with at work without needing him to say much at all, which was a relief: he still felt drained and talking was too much of an effort. Which was all the more reason he should have turned tail and ran then and there, and doubtless he would have, had he been paying more attention to Molly's endlessly interesting parchment.

A knock at the door. Molly quickly craned to see her clock on the counter, but none of the hands had moved even briefly from "mortal peril," and she looked rather more satisfied than a mother might under those circumstances. "I'll get it," she said, in a tone that roused Remus's suspicions at once.

"You're expecting someone?"

"Be back in a minute – "

Remus closed his eyes. "Molly," he said imploringly, "why didn't you warn me?"

"Because you would have left, you great fool, and then I would have had to use the Full-Body Bind on you, because that's what I promised her if you tried to leave before she was off her shift."

"So it's her?"

"Don't sound that way, you still promised to be – _friends_, didn't you? Think of it this way, now you won't have to make a special trip to ask about safekeeping your wand!"

And with that Molly bustled to the door, which had been rapped on three times during their quick delaying exchange. Remus was slumped in his chair, eyes still shut, as he listened to the security questions – "What did I teach you to cook last year?" – "Gingerbread," shot back an impatient voice. "Back in September, and good thing too, I barely got the hang of it by Christmas, what's your favourite Lockhart book?" – "_Break with a Banshee_," and Remus heard Molly open the door. He straightened resolutely and screwed his face into the most neutral expression he could find – no, not that neutral, he didn't want to act as though he were angry at her – there. He was prepared with a slight smile when Tonks came in.

"I'm allowed to talk to you, at least, I s'pose?" Tonks asked, with half-hearted aggression. It touched Remus rather more than he would admit.

"You had better be," said Molly, entirely pleased with herself and winking, although in her haste at the back wall instead of at either of them. "I just remembered I have – chores – feed the chickens – you know, I ought to find that owl of mine, send some of these tarts to dear Fleur – " She swept up the platter and her clock in almost the same motion and without further ado left them alone.

" 'Dear Fleur,'" Tonks noted. "There you have it, Remus, you can't just let her make that sacrifice for nothing."

"Of course I'll talk to you. I don't hate you."

"Could have fooled me," said Tonks, but her coldness was fast melting as she looked hungrily at him. It was in an uncharacteristically soft tone that she said, "How are you? How was it?"

He gave her to understand it was not the sort of topic one discussed first thing after a two months' separation from another. He asked instead after her – she was still stationed up in Hogsmeade, wasn't she? – but she looked at him flatly, and, after a moment, said, "I don't really want to talk about that." After another moment she sat down opposite him; the tips of her fingers reached for his.

He pulled back, of course.

Molly came in fifteen minutes later to Tonks saying, with a tear-filled glare, "_Stop talking to me like I'm eight years old!_" and them arguing so acrimoniously that Tonks had her wand out, and Remus's voice was actually raised in anger, which was a minor miracle. She was forced to pack them both off – probably her wisest move of the night.

Really, she might have had more success if she had told them both to simply forget about the other. Molly assumed that she had a talent for this sort of thing because she had talents in what seemed related areas… however…

---

Springtime in London. Meaning the skies were grey and thick with wetness.

Fleur spotted Tonks first; she emerged from a certain building with someone Fleur recognised as another of the Weasleys' friends, his name was Shacklebolt and Fleur thought he might have been another Auror, and figured she was right as she watched him give her businesslike orders in what she would tell was a lowered voice. After listening a moment Tonks nodded and smartly but smilelessly mock-saluted him. They turned separate ways. As Tonks neared Fleur could smell or sense a certain magic; since both Tonks and Shacklebolt were in robes, probably they were enchanted for the moment so Muggles wouldn't see them.

Fleur was _very _bored sitting with her present company, and when Tonks neared Fleur called to her in the friendliest way she knew. Tonks blinked and looked at them and came over. She even summoned a "wotcher."

Tonks may have been in depression, but her Auror-trained powers of observation were not significantly lessened, and someone would have had to have been a lot more out of it than her to not notice that they were sitting at a table with a Weasley boy – very obviously a Weasley, red-headed, freckled. The resemblance to Ron was strong, despite the horn-rimmed glasses and impossibly neatly combed hair. And the new Weasley looked almost exactly as Ron did in Fleur's presence, only more so.

"This is the infamous Percy, then?" Tonks asked Fleur in an undertone – but not _much_ of an undertone; there was no need when Percy was staring at Fleur with his mouth unhinged and eyes slightly glazed. His head would ever so slowly begin to dip to one side, until it went too far over and jerked back up, when it would begin to tilt the other way.

"Yes, zis is Bill's little brozzer, ze third Weasley. 'e is – what is ze expression? – 'at outs' wiz ze family just now because ze Weasleys distrust ze Ministry and he was ze Minister's secretary or somezing. I hear zere was a very ugly scene two summers ago – with Arthur, wiz Meester Weasley! Can you imagine Arthur yelling?"

Tonks knew all of this and probably in more detail than Fleur herself, but one good thing about depression is that it insulates you from caring if other people are making too much of themselves and patronising you. "He doesn't hear a word we're saying, does he?"

"Not at all," said Fleur, with a certain satisfaction. "I 'ave 'im stringed, Miss Tonks." (Tonks briefly considered correcting Fleur – it was _Auror _Tonks, thank you – but then dropped it. She hadn't the heart for pride just then. And no good reminding Percy which Ministry employees were helping the Order.) "'e came into ze bank one day and I 'it 'im so 'ard – I mean wiz charm, you understand! – that now he finds excuses to come in every so often and I get 'im to buy me lunch. I zought I might be able to 'elp reconcile him wiz his family, but I am encountering difficulties. If I use less charm, 'e comes to 'is senses, eez embarrassed, and 'astily tries to get away. But using ze charm as I am now, he cannot compre'end one word in twenty."

"Yeah, I can see where you're coming from then," said Tonks dubiously. "You don't think Bill will be jealous if he finds out?"

"I will explain everyzing to 'im," Fleur said with a confidence that was more beautiful than she herself. "'e will understand. Bill and I are deeply in love, you know, and do not need to fear telling each other anyzing." (Tonks sighed.) "I would tell him now except I want to wait until I 'ave 'ad more success. I think I will invite zis Percy to our wedding. Under my influence 'e may be very agreeable."

"It's a good plan," said Tonks vaguely. If she had been her old self she would have been honest and told Fleur that this was the screwiest plan she had ever heard of. A plan dancing around naked but for a tea cosy in its invitation for disastrous, Molly-in-hysterics disaster.

"I 'ave my doubts. I first saw 'im over Christmas, at ze – what is it called again? – ze 'Ole, ze place where ze Weasleys live – and Percy was very disagreeable. Fred and George and ze little girl started throwing food at 'im!" Fleur was wide-eyed at this lack of couth. Tonks snickered quietly.

Fleur had been neglecting him for so long that Percy seemed to have recovered the powers of intelligible speech. "Fleur?" he said; both women turned their heads sharply to him at his pleading tone. "You've scarcely touched your crab meat. Don't you like it?"

Tonks suddenly looked down at Fleur's dish, and then more closely at the little Muggle restaurant in whose courtyard they were seated, which was a rather ritzy place. Tonks vaguely hoped that Percy was making a good salary, because Fleur must have him spending an awful lot of it on her.

Fleur pushed her half-eaten crab meat aside disdainfully. She did not smile at Percy but looked at him with soulful blue eyes – the blue was suddenly rather deeper than Tonks remembered it; probably at the moment Fleur was probably more of a Metamorphagus than Tonks herself – and that seemed to do the trick; Percy's face went slack again. "Eet eez not vairy _bon_," she said, French accent thickening. "Zaire eez no good een buying foods out of season; zey always taste queer."

"Ah – oh, yes," said Percy, with an avid vapidity. However much of a blockhead Percy might be in other ways, Tonks knew he hadn't garnered twelve OWLS by being _this _thick. "Awful. Ought – ought to complain to the manager."

"_Would _you?" said Fleur sweetly. "I just want to feenish talking to Miss Tonks 'ere. Percy, 'ave you noticed Miss Tonks?"

Miss Tonks had to smile faintly. There was no doubt that Percy hadn't even registered her.

Percy looked blearily at Fleur's wrong side and said something polite. Tonks wondered if he would be able to stand properly, and when he attempted he _did _seem a little drunk. He wandered off, getting more steady on his feet the farther he got from Fleur's umbrella'd table.

"Once 'e returns 'e will 'ave recovered some," said Fleur with satisfaction. "I will entice 'im wiz no more charm than comes natural to try making up wiz 'is family. I think it will see good results."

"Oh, doubtless," said Tonks, who doubted, and was busy thinking, _If even one of my ancestors had been a veela instead of insane inbreeds or Cockney Methodists, I could string Remus along for about a year and then let him wake up and find that all his bloody concerns hadn't panned out at all. _

No, that was nonsense. She had best focus. Generations of familial relations might be on the line here. "Erm – when do you think you will warn them about Percy showing up to the wedding?"

"I zink I will just let 'im show up," said Fleur composedly. "And if zat Molly realised the trouble I am undertaking to give 'er a 'appy day!"

Tonks blanched, her bad feeling increased tremendously. "Um," she began. "Tell you the truth, I can't help but think – "

"And you, Miss Tonks," said Fleur, who hadn't listened to a word Tonks had said after the 'um'. She leaned in conspiratorially. "You know, I would not give up 'ope if I were you. I saw your man over Christmas; 'e is quite definitely not wiz anyone else."

Blink. "Well, no, he wouldn't be – but – wait – how was he?"

Fleur shrugged. "Oh, I cannot say, I barely spoke to 'im," she said dismissively, unaware that she had Tonks's aforesaid hope in her immaculate hands. "But I tell you zis as a friend, Miss Tonks, I zink you should be more forward, you should not let yourself go like zis. Even 'e will 'ave a chance with someone else sooner or later – "

"What? Oh, no, that's definitely not the problem, thanks." And Tonks felt herself again bored and distracted.

"It all comes down to catching 'im," said Fleur, melodiously sage.

"Yeah, well, he's already caught, or at least close enough. It's just – well, you know, we're all of us in the Order – you know the Order – "

"Ah, yes." It was Fleur's turn to look as though she were losing interest.

"It's just he's on a mission right now, it's quite iffy and it's seldom we ever get to touch base. We'll get over the other issues sooner or later if he lives through it, it's just a matter of him living through it." Tonks didn't know why she was explaining so much of this, but her pride, long comatose, was beginning to reawaken with pinpricks; she didn't want Miss Part-Veela pitying her because she couldn't "catch her man." So if nothing else Fleur had done that much for her.

Surprisingly enough, Fleur was again looking faintly interested. "Ah, well now. So it is dangerous, zis mission?"

"Well – yes," said Tonks, now wary, wondering if she had brandied too much. But Fleur was smiling at her.

"Ah! Zen I am sure you must be very proud of 'im, no?"

Another blink. "_No_, I'm not 'proud of him', I told him to tell Dumbledore to stuff it right from the start, and I've been worried sick about him ever since he blew me off and insisted on torturing himself as usual!"

Fleur looked vaguely puzzled. Tonks felt vaguely abashed.

"Well, yeah, I suppose I'm proud of him," she mumbled, "I mean, I never really thought about it, it's all doing what we have to do. I suppose wouldn't have refused the mission either if it had been me, it's just – "

Fleur was still looking intently at her. Tonks felt rather pinned.

"Oh, I don't know," she finished eloquently, feeling disgusted with herself at being unequal to meet those deep blue eyes.

"_I _zink – " But Fleur then broke off; there were gasps about them, and both young women turned to see Percy shaking his fist at a red-coated manager. Fleur laughed in both amusement and exasperation. "Excuse me, I must reign 'im in – "

"I'm supposed to be off too," said Tonks, quickly glancing at her watch, "but, look – Miss Delacour? – I _really _suggest not bringing your pet dog to the wedding – "

Fleur threw a vague smile at her as she marched over to the two men. It was with a doomed feeling in her stomach that Tonks went off, but after concentrating on her Auror duties for a mere five minutes she had managed to downgrade the doom to a sense of scattered unease. She had been feeling that most of the year, and so didn't take much more notice of it.

She was supposed to keep her eyes peeled for an Imperiused Muggle whom their intelligence said worked somewhere on this street, and then to go up to Hogsmeade for a guard shift with Auror Proudfoot, and then after _that_ Dumbledore had owled and asked her to patrol Hogwarts starting at ten o'clock. Not that Tonks minded; the busier she was the happier, and even her mother, who had once thought her too carefree, had been exclaiming about overwork whenever they met as of late – so Tonks was aiming to make sure they didn't often meet. What could her mother understand, anyway, she had left the Wizarding world during the last war, and would never fully approve of what Tonks was doing now. Still, Tonks had taken a small, low, vindictive pleasure from burning Dumbledore's note once she had the hours memorised.

Oh, in her heart of hearts she was still perfectly loyal to Dumbledore, she trusted him implicitly and would have died if that had been among her orders… she couldn't help resenting him all the same. She had seen what had happened to Sirius last year, on Dumbledore's orders – in the beginning she had seen many flashes of a man who was her second cousin and furthermore whom she was sure she would have once liked, but those flashes had become more and more infrequent as the year got on, and to tell the truth it had been to the point where she hadn't honestly much liked him (although to be fair she was probably prejudiced; for a long while he had been on the list of Remus's vapid objections to taking up with each other), and anyway he had finally got himself killed because Dumbledore had asked the impossible of him too long. Tonks couldn't help but see parallels to the current case. The werewolf infiltration was the worst possible thing for Remus. She had confided all this to Molly one night, and Molly had told her not to worry – "Remus is made of quite a different mold than Sirius was" – and Tonks could see what she was saying, but Molly always had sold Sirius short and Tonks didn't see the problem had been a matter of Sirius's shoulders but of Dumbledore's logs. And she didn't think she could ever forgive Dumbledore if on this mission Remus was badly hurt or killed or even got warped mentally, no, _especially_ if he got warped mentally, and lost what was so valuable about him, his kindness or sense of humour.

The thing was Tonks was pretty sure Dumbledore would be all understanding if he knew all about these thoughts. Come to think of it, he probably _had_ divined 'em, omniscient Legilimenscing old bastard. And furthermore the mad old softie would be proud of her for her heart, and honoured to be a target for the side-effect frustrations that arose from the wondrous phenomenon that was love, and all that mush.

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It wasn't the same night as Tonks had just been contemplating, it was – later. It was a patrol with her and Bill again, though, and Remus as well; Remus had come earlier to tell Dumbledore that Greyback had plans to be away that night, thinking it suspicious, and Dumbledore had him stay. Which was why Bill had now wandered off from the two of them: he wasn't positive what the status on _that_ situation was, but figured they might want a moment alone together after probably not getting one in months. Which was wonderfully unprying on Bill's part, because anyone with any tendency to think too much of the affaires of others couldn't have missed their relief when he had arrived. But Bill went on untroubled.

Snape took his hand at that untroubledness; it was irresistible, and it would have been rude not to acknowledge the former student and current… colleague.

"You lot are here?" Snape asked as they approached each other from opposite directions in an interestingly gloomy corridor.

"Yep," said Bill. "Dumbledore called us in."

"He went out?" asked Snape, looking furious to find this information secondhand. Bill didn't take much notice of the fury. Snape continued rather indifferently – asking the information from habit rather than desire – "Who are you with, then?" And even Bill couldn't miss his disgust when he named the names. "Wonderful," Snape said, and even his scorn had more habit than bite to it, as if it were simply a worn old groove that Snape found easier to sink into than to buck, even if the groove no longer served purpose. "I'm sure you feel confident with them at your back."

"Nothing to worry about," said Bill, ignoring the sarcasm. "Rest easy, Professor."

Snape was giving him the superior sort of look that the old reserve for the young, and tired Slytherins for impossibly upbeat Gryffindors.

"Typical," he said, softly, for to say it loudly would have been too blatantly rude to pass, and Snape did not fancy a duel in said interestingly gloomy corridor that night. "Invincible, aren't you."

Bill's mind was still swimming with images of Fleur.

"Yeah," he said casually. "Something like that."

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**The End (!) **

**Till next time, and thanks again to all. :-) **


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